rvice, as if he were already dead. They well
knew the usual end of labor in the mines. A mass was said for him at the
church, and he had to take an oath of fidelity to the king. Then he was
sprinkled with holy water and sent away to his deadly service. Deadly we
may well call it, for it is said that scarcely a fifth part of these
miners lived through their term of labor.

Lowered from the light of the sun into the deep underground shafts and
galleries, and passing from the pure air of heaven to a pestilential
atmosphere, excessive labor and bad food soon robbed them of strength and
often of life. If they survived this, a species of asthma usually carried
them off during the year. We may judge of the results from the calculation
that the _mitad_ in Peru alone had eight million victims.

The law limited the _mitad_ to those living within thirty miles of a mine,
but laborers were often brought by force from hundreds of miles away. As
for the small wages paid them, the masters took part of it from them in
payment for their food, and usually got the remainder by giving credit for
clothes or liquor or in other ways. In fact, if by good fortune the Indian
had not lost his life at the end of his term of service, he might be
brought into debt which he could not pay, and thus held a slave for life.

The _repartimiento_ was another protective law, which also became a means
of oppression. Under it the district officials were required to supply all
things needed by the Indians, there being, when the law was passed, no
peddlers or travelling dealers. This privilege was quickly and shamelessly
abused, the natives being sold poor clothing, spoiled grain, sour wine,
and other inferior supplies, often at three or four times their value when
of good quality. They were even made to buy things at high prices which
were of no possible use to them, such as silk stockings for men who went
barefoot, and razors for those who had scarcely any beard to shave. One
_corregidor_ bought a box of spectacles from a trader, and made the
natives buy these at his own price, to wear when they went to mass,
without regard to the fact that they were utterly useless to them.

The oppression of the natives was not confined to the laity, but the
clergy were often as unjust. They forced them to pay not only the tithes,
but extravagant prices for every church service, forty reals being charged
for a baptism, twenty for a marriage certificate, thirty-two for a bur